Amiga music fans rejoice: 2009 is going to bring you two exciting new CD projects!

After years of absence from the remixing scene, Instant Remedy is finally ready to give the fans a second injection of his all-healing dance beats, this time in the shape of a remix album concentrating on the Commodore Amiga: many of the popular and big titles from the 16-bit era will be included and of course rendered into booty-shaking, dance-friendly versions with that instantly recognizable IR trademark sound. The tracklisting of the CD is still a secret, but tunes like â€œProject Xâ€ or â€œLotus Turbo Challenge 2â€ are destined to be included - and what kind of Amiga album would possibly be complete without music by HÃ¼lsbeck and Hippel?

Instant Remedy began his remixing career a decade ago and quickly became known as a dance remix whiz when his takes on â€œCommandoâ€, â€œLast Ninjaâ€, or â€œComic Bakeryâ€ were released. The enthusiastic feedback he received from listeners soon led to the production of a proper SID remix album published by C64Audio.com in 2002 (now sold out, but available as a digital download from www.c64audio.com).

Says Martin (aka Instant Remedy): â€œI have thought about making Amiga remixes for quite a while, but was never able to get myself to begin. They are quite different from SID remixes since you have a second dimension to cover: the samples technology available on the 16-bit computer. Amiga tunes get their special sound and atmosphere by using samples on top of the melody to describe the music. My vision is to stay true to the original compositions but within the boundaries of a dance style remix. And it really feels good to be backâ€¦â€

It has also been revealed that a fourth (and possibly final) album in the acclaimed â€œImmortalâ€ series is currently being worked on. Created by Portuguese Ruben Monteiro back in 1997, the idea behind the â€œImmortalâ€ project is to have popular tunes from Commodore Amiga games arranged for CD by the original composers whenever possible. Artists like Allister Brimble, Chris HÃ¼lsbeck, Andrew Barnabas, Tim Wright, Jason Page or the late Richard Joseph have contributed exclusive studio versions of their game soundtracks in the past. The most recent volume was released in 2006 and featured over 150 minutes of music from 35 Amiga titles.

Says executive producer Jan Zottmann: â€œI think I have been talking about the fourth album on a number of occasions already, but it was never announced properly. So here you finally have itâ€¦ weâ€™re working on it, and it is going to be a massive double CD set once again! The list of contributors includes a number of familiar faces, but also some composers who are new to the series, for instance Jean Baudlot, Mark Knight or Raymond Usherâ€.

Hehe, I'm afraid that both projects will need a few more months before they are ready to hit the shelves. However, we are working really hard on these albums, so expect a couple of previews in the near future. For the time being, you may want to check out the links below: Tim Wright (alias Cold Storage) and Matthias Steinwachs talk about writing music for games - the "Immortal 4" project is briefly mentioned in these interviews.

I just thought I might bring some news on what is happening on my side of the project.

I'm currently working hard on a new Instant Remedy website with news, info, music area and so on. I want it to feel as solid as possible at the time of launch, so there is quite a lot of things to do. It's been a while since I last dealt with web stuff and there has been some changes in the way of making a site. Right now I just want it to be finished so I can get back to business - the music.

And to bring something from the music side of things I'll just throw in a couple of quotes from the feedback I got from Ron Klaren: "Just had a listen to the remixes of Battle Squadron......... WOW!
I really like them! I think you have done a great job so far Martin!" and "BS Highscore: Impressive... never thought that song could be remixed to a dancesong!"
This of course was very nice to hear and the kind words encouraged me to keep the other remixes in that direction too.

Jan Zottman has done a great job tracking down original composers and he has managed to get all people involved on board. Very nice indeed.

At the time of launch of my new site I'm planning to have a little teaser/previews ready for those who are curious about the Amigaremix CD project.

I'm not sure of when the release is going to be for my Amiga CD but before 2009 ends feels like a realistic estimation.
A medley for radio promotion sounds like a good idea. Actually, something like that is already planned

I'm looking forward to the track list! Amiga music and games are all new to me (I think I played Marble Madness a few times at the store), so you guys might be responsible for getting me into something that will keep me entertained for a looong time.

OK, time for some news from the development front: The "Immortal 4" album has made some progress, about 26 tracks are completed or close to being completed at this point. One of these songs is an awesome rendition of the theme music from "F17 Challenge" by Nicola Tomljanovich - you can find an excerpt of that one in the download section of his homepage (http://www.amc-interactive.com). Nicola has recently started to work on a second arrangement for the album, but I won't reveal the title just yet... however, feel free to look up his credits in the HOL database and make a guess!

While the release of the "Immortal 4" CD set is still a couple of months away, you can already win a free copy of the album today: "Immortal" series producer Jan Zottmann, demo scene legend Jogeir Liljedahl, and veteran game music composer Bjorn Lynne have prepared a competition exclusively for the members of the Remix64 forum. What do you have to do? First, download a short mp3 (approx. 1 MB) from http://www.amiga-immortal.com/compo.mp3 - this is an excerpt from a remix Jogeir has been working on for "Immortal 4". The tricky part is that this little demo previews the percussion only... it sounds pretty characteristic though, so some of you will be able to recognize it for sure. Now, if you think you know which game this music was taken from, just send me a private message containing the title of the game (please do not post possible solutions here in this thread as it might spoil the competition for others). Each board member has a single try to come up with the right game, so choose carefully! The first person to send me the correct title will receive a free copy of "Immortal 4" (upon its release) and a free mp3 download of Jogeir's latest solo effort "Out of Silence" - learn more about this album at http://www.lynnemusic.com/jogeir-outofsilence.html. Four runner-ups will receive either an "Immortal 4" CD or free access to Jogeir's digital album. The winners will be announced right here in this thread. Good luck!

EDIT: Come to think of it, perhaps it would make more sense to set a deadline and then randomly select five winners? So, please send me your guess until June 30th - and extra special thanks to (name removed) for the super-fast submission, it's good to see that some of you are closely following the progress of our little project...

Last edited by Jim Power on 08/06/2009 - 12:23, edited 1 time in total.